This paper provides an elementary, non-technical, survey of auction theory, by introducing and describing some of the critical papers in the subject. (The most important of these are reproduced in a companion book, The Economic Theory of Auctions, Paul Klemperer (ed.), Edward Elgar (pub.), forthcoming.) We begin with the most fundamental concepts, and then introduce the basic analysis of optimal auctions, the revenue equivalence theorem, and marginal revenues. Subsequent sections address risk-aversion, affiliation, asymmetries, entry, collusion, multi-unit auctions, double auctions, royalties, incentive contracts, and other topics. Appendices contain technical details, some simple worked examples, and a bibliography for each section.

We present an implementation of an electronic auction house inspired by the age old institution of the fish market, where both software and human agents may trade. This implementation supports fair, lively and robust bidder interactions. FM96.5 is a Java-based multi-agent environment that allows for a real-time concurrent operation of the complete fish market auction process by making use of multi-threading. Agent interactions in this structured environment are modelled through standardized illocutions implemented upon Java Object Serialization. All market-owned agents are deployed through a simple layered architecture, while buyer and seller agents of arbitrary complexity are confined to the market behavioural conventions through standardized Java agent interface applets. 1 Introduction Internet is spawning many new markets. One that is particularly attractive for multiagent technologies is network-based trading. But if that market is to become an effective actual market various non-...

Abstract—This paper surveys and analyzes the state of the art of agent-mediated electronic commerce (e-commerce), concentrating particularly on the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) aspects. From the consumer buying behavior perspective, agents are being used in the following activities: need identification, product brokering, buyer coalition formation, merchant brokering, and negotiation. The roles of agents in B2B e-commerce are discussed through the business-to-business transaction model that identifies agents as being employed in partnership formation, brokering, and negotiation. Having identified the roles for agents in B2C and B2B e-commerce, some of the key underpinning technologies of this vision are highlighted. Finally, we conclude by discussing the future directions and potential impediments to the wide-scale adoption of agent-mediated e-commerce. Index Terms—Agent-mediated electronic commerce, intelligent agents. 1

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This paper analyzes individually-rational ex post equilibrium in the VC (Vickrey-Clarke) combinatorial auctions. If \Sigma is a family of bundles of goods, the organizer may restrict the participants by requiring them to submit their bids only for bundles in \Sigma. The \Sigma-VC combinatorial auctions (multi-good auctions) obtained in this way are known to be individually-rational truthtelling mechanisms. In contrast, this paper deals with non-restricted VC auctions, in which the buyers restrict themselves to bids on bundles in \Sigma, because it is rational for them to do so. That is, it may be that when the buyers report their valuation of the bundles in \Sigma, they are in an equilibrium. We fully characterize those \Sigma that induce individually rational equilibrium in every VC auction, and we refer to the associated equilibrium as a bundling equilibrium. The number of bundles in \Sigma represents the communication complexity of the equilibrium. A special case of bundling equilibrium is partition-based equilibrium, in which \Sigma is a field, that is, it is generated by a partition. We analyze the tradeoff between communication complexity and economic efficiency of bundling equilibrium, focusing in particular on partition-based equilibrium.

This paper provides a definition of automated negotiation within electronic commerce. It outlines two barriers to automated negotiation, the ontology issue and the strategy problem. State of the art overviews are given of automated negotiation, specifically Negotiation Support Systems, intelligent agents, the auction mechanism, and online marketspaces. Both academic research and currently functional systems are covered, and several World Wide Web addresses are given for readers who wish to investigate further on their own. 1 1 While every attempt is made to provide current URL locations, the Web changes more quickly than print media can ever capture. Hence, some of the URLs may not be current or correct by the time this article appears. We will try to keep our Negotiation Project web site, http://haas.berkeley.edu/~citm/nego-proj.html, current with respect to these addresses. 2 1.

On the online auction site eBay, by convention, sellers do not ship goods to winning bidders until after they have received payment, so there is an opportunity for sellers to take advantage of bidders' trust. Realizing this, the designers of eBay created a system that relies on selfenforcement using reputation. It is almost as if eBay's structure was designed by people who are familiar with folk theorems on self-enforcement. A simple model of bidder behavior guides an empirical analysis of how bidders respond to sellers with better reputations. Sellers do receive significant returns to honest behavior. JEL classification codes: L14, L15, D83, D12 * I thank Peter Murrell and Bill Evans for guidance and many helpful comments and suggestions. Omar Azfar, Peter Cramton, Mohamed El-Hodiri, John List, Deborah Minehart, and especially the participants of the Maryland graduate student Microeconomics seminar have also offered helpful comments on this paper and previous versions of it. John Deke offered useful advice in data collection methods. Finally, thanks to Matthew Langley, who wrote the Perl script that parsed the web pages into useable data. Any remaining errors are my own. ** livingst@econ.bsos.umd.edu I.

Does valuation affect mergers? Data suggest that periods of stock merger activity are correlated with high market valuations. The naïve explanation that overvalued bidders wish to use stock is incomplete because targets should not be eager to accept stock. However, we show that potential market value deviations from fundamental values on both sides of the transaction can rationally lead to a correlation between stock merger activity and market valuation. Merger waves and waves of cash and stock purchases can be rationally driven by periods of over and under valuation of the stock market. Thus, valuation fundamentally impacts mergers. One of the puzzles in finance is why there are periods when mergers are plentiful and other periods

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